Evento

Intuizione.

Costi: 4. XP: 5.

Studioso

Indaga. La difficoltà di questa prova di abilità è pari al valore di Oscurità più alto tra i luoghi aperti in gioco. Se hai successo, scopri 1 indizio da ogni luogo aperto in gioco.

Shane Pierce
Oltre il Tempo e lo Spazio #303.
Realtà Decifrata

FAQs

(from the official FAQ or responses to the official rules question form)
  • Generally speaking, investigating is the act of investigating a location. Thematically, Deciphered Reality makes it seem like you are investigating all of the revealed locations at once, and that is surely the flavor of the card. But examining the text of the card line by line, we see that it only really does 2 things: 1) Instead of the test’s difficulty being equal to the shroud value of your location, the test’s difficulty is equal to the highest shroud value among revealed locations in play. 2) If you succeed, you discover 1 clue from each revealed location in play (and this is not a replacement effect). You’re still technically investigating your location. For example, if you played Deciphered Reality while in the Orne Library, you would still need to spend an additional action to investigate. Likewise, you couldn’t play Deciphered Reality at a location with a Locked Door.

  • Deciphered Reality is not a replacement effect; its effect doesn’t use any form of ‘instead’ or ‘but,’ so its effect is in addition to the standard rewards for successfully investigating. (Otherwise it would say something like “instead of discovering a clue at your location…”) (Compare with Burglary). In other words, if you successfully use Deciphered Reality, you would discover 1 clue at your location, and 1 clue at each revealed location. If you commit Deduction to this test, you would still discover 1 additional clue at your location.
Last updated

Reviews

I've built a fair number of high-XP Seeker decks and I've never been that tempted to include Deciphered Reality. Oh, sure, the peak performance of this card is bonkers. In some scenarios you could arrange events so that you pick up nine clues in a single action. The rewards for a successful investigation are so high that combining it with Double or Nothing is actually worth actively pursuing (whereas most reviews' mentions of Double or Nothing are more like a fun thought experiment than a practical deck-building consideration).

But I'm not sold on it, and I think there's an important philosophical point we ought to unpack, there.

Arkham Horror CG decks should be built defensively. The consequences of succeeding a scenario are huge compared with failure - it could mean getting powerful allies, avoiding trauma and extra weaknesses, or even tipping the balance of success or failure for the entire campaign. By comparison, the difference between succeeding at a scenario and succeeding at it very well is typically an XP or two.

Therefore, cards that help you not fail are more important than cards that help you win harder. Deciphered Reality is a card of the latter type. You can only really bring out its full potential when you're in total control of your situation, where you can afford to have you and your other investigators spread out and exposing as many locations as possible to maximize the yield. If that's the position you're in, then you were probably going to win anyway.

Sure, in theory picking up a lot of clues at once can tip the balance between a win and a loss, but honestly? This is more clues than you need. Bear in mind that averaging one clue per investigator per round is extremely fast, and most scenarios will let you get away with half that pace, e.g. six rounds to pick up three clues per investigator. Massive clue-vacuuming plays are less important for a Seeker than just making sure that they, or someone else nearby, can keep enemies at bay so they can zip around the map and investigate at a steady pace.

If you don't specifically plan to use Deciphered Reality to make a huge play, then it may not even be worth using. It's not cheap at four resources, and there are relatively affordable cards to help you rapidly collect clues, like Archaic Glyphs: Guiding Stones and both variants of Deduction. Moreover, Pathfinder or a well placed upgraded Shortcut are great ways to cut down on the number of actions in a scenario, which is similar in practice to the payoff from Deciphered Reality, but they're cheaper and they're easy to use well.

On top of that, this card is just begging to be autofailed. If that happens, then you're practically guaranteed not to have time to pick up clues at all the VP locations that you deliberately didn't finish up, and could be at risk of failing the scenario itself. This game is meant to randomly generate huge setbacks. For the love of Yig, do not put all your eggs in one basket, like Deciphered Reality is baiting you to do!

sfarmstrong · 266
I would be very tempted to use it in solo play, as it might provide huge action compression. Unfortunately I do not like the seeker class that much. — XehutL · 47
How would solo play improve its action compression? — sfarmstrong · 266
I basically agree. But a few points. First, in one prominent scenario, which happens to be one of the hardest scenarios ever printed, all locations start revealed. Second, by the time you get this (which would be very, very late campaign), you can have significant protection from the autofail on your team, with the likes of Time Warp, Seal of the Elder Sign, that sort of thing. — CaiusDrewart · 3004
That aside, in most circumstances, I think this card is not worth it. You'd basically have to know in advance that the upcoming scenario is going to be conducive to it. — CaiusDrewart · 3004
Basically, yeah. Even with Seal of the Elder Sign, this combo would be a complete bastard to set up, but has some potential upsides if you know scenario details ahead of time. I haven't replayed enough scenarios to have a feel for how that kind of foreknowledge affects deck-building. — sfarmstrong · 266
I meant not improved by solo play but fact that with several scenarios it might provide huge acceleration with the right setup/play. It still can be ruined by tentacles, of course. — XehutL · 47
We tried this card in several scenarios in 4 Player but is was never worth it. Alone the time it took to reveal all locations... guiding stones and in the know is much easier to use. — Django · 4854
This card is crazy in Dim Carcosa though. — Razoupaf · 1
Might work well in a Minh Barricade deck. — Zinjanthropus · 223
Except with https://arkhamdb.com/card/04307 it can't fail. And if your Rogue friend has a Double or Nothing, you can complete some scenarios quite fast. — GrandMasterJ · 2
I agree with this assessment. I've used this card once and once only, in The City of Archives, and yes--it was awesome to pick up six or seven clues in one action. But it took a fair amount of setup to get my Seeker in the position to make the play, and the stars never aligned like that again. This card, although sexy as hell, is just pie in the sky. — Pinchers · 115

This card has excellent synergy with Ursula Downs. Given that she’ll be moving around quite a bit to maximize use of her ability and investing in mobility upgrades like Pathfinder and Shortcut to further capitalise on that, it’s very plausible she’ll be scampering across the map at lightspeed, handily opening up locations left and right.

Getting this card is a further extension of that play style; finding one of these copies at or near the start of the game means that you can afford to keep moving off from high shroud or otherwise troublesome locations like Circuitous Trail or Serpent's Haven instead of staying to empty them normally and paying through the nose as a result. You can then play this card to grab the breadcrumb trail of clues you’ve left behind, sweeping off the last remaining clue or two off a whole bunch of locations at once, and minimizing the number of tests you need to make as well.

Jarell88 · 17
Always though about this card in multiplayer, but your point will make me rethink it even in solo. But that rethinking will be heavy though, since a use case for this card is like once a campaign maybe, if I'm unlucky enough to fail multiple investigations along the way (1 clue locations) and lucky enough to start a secenario with that in hands. — Onetribe · 283
Ursula also can take Grotesque Statue, which can prevent an autofail. — Zinjanthropus · 223
Agreed. #I saw it work once with [Ursula Downs](/card/04002) jumping from place to place with her passive and [Shortcut](/card/03232) and Pathfinder. Forgotten Age campaign. — Lunar · 1

Deciphered Reality is a staple card for my 4x Standard playgroup. It performs very well in about 70% of scenarios, and on Standard difficulty it's easy to ensure success for anything but autofail.

In most scenarios, it's not hard to have at least five revealed locations with clues on them, which makes this card worth 5 additional clues for 4 resources; great deal. But it also helps that the extra clues get pulled off other locations, which helps the team finish clearing a troublesome spot while letting the Seeker continue to gather a bunch from their current location.

In the scenarios where it works, it helps either save time and Move actions; or works like Seeking Answers to pickup clues without investigating dangerous locations; or helps advance the Act quickly by getting a burst of clues. In scenarios where it doesn't work... Well, yeah, it's a bad Perception.

This card feels like it's level 5 just to limit which investigators can take it; it's not a game-breaking must-have, but for my group, it's a powerful and pretty reliable event.

It's very nice in Dim Carcosa.... — LivefromBenefitSt · 1022
I would say that in the scenarios where it doesn't work it can be a bad deduction too. Remember that the 'if you succeed' is not a replacement effect! You can still use this to grab two clues for one action from your location. — Death by Chocolate · 1359
That is true, and is good to point out... 4 resources is pretty expensive for only one or two extra clues, but it's not a completely dead card. — Hylianpuffball · 25
A VERY bad Deduction, I would say. Besides Deduction (0) costing no resources or XP, it gives you +1 to the skill value. This likely gives you a malus to the skill value, depending on the location you are on and what others are in play. — Susumu · 330

SPOILER ALERT: Very minor spoilers for The Path to Carcosa.

I've played Deciphered Reality now in what is often considered the optimal deck for it, a Rex Murphy deck in a Carcosa campaign. I purchased the card early, and two copies of it, specifically to see if it would see any use prior to the last scenario. Unfortunately, it didn't get played even a single time. It didn't even get committed for the skill icons, as I was often better off keeping it in my hand instead, and using resources to fuel Higher Education.

The unfortunate thing for this card is it relies on several things:

  • Four resources (which I'm often spending on Higher Education, playing Dr. Milan Christopher, and other events to advance the group's progress).
  • Many locations revealed (which, other than the 8th scenario, we tended to explore conservatively, and stick close together).
  • At least one clue on all revealed locations (between Rex Murphy's ability to scoop up clues, and Archaic Glyphs's ability to combine with Higher Education to scoop up all the clues, there weren't often spare clues left behind).
  • The card in hand when the above three stars are in alignment (this was the least difficult to pull off, as I'd purchased the upgraded No Stone Unturned).

All of the above being said, in the final scenario of Carcosa, I did use one of the copies to scoop up eight clues. But, because of the nature of that scenario, it's better to focus on collecting all the clues from a single location.

Verdict? I feel I wouldn't buy this card again.

cb42 · 36
I’m not saying you shouldn’t go for Archaic Glyphs + Higher Education, but running that in the same deck as Deciphered Reality is just asking for anti-synergy since DR relies on you leaving a clue behind on each location as you explore the map. Compared to the combo, DR requires three other locations with a clue (plus your current with two) to get the same value for 4 resources. Again, I’m not disagreeing with your conclusions, but I think DR requires a deck built around it and not against it. — Death by Chocolate · 1359
Yeah, this isnt really a card that works well with Rex; Rex prefers a play style where he empties a location of clues completely with his ID one at a time before moving on to the next. As per my review above, this has better synergy with investigators that favor mobility over staying to grab clues. In an Ursula run, for example, she’s not gonna be blowing all her resources to overpay for Rex’s ID, she’s going to be hypermobile, and if she starts with this in hand or a way to pull it, she can deliberately leave said singleton clues behind. This isnt a card that just fits into any deck, but when it shows up in the hand of someone who has a mobile investigator early, it can reap immense dividends with the right playstyle. — Jarell88 · 17